


movement

by klickitats



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Eluvians, F/F, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 10:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6280480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klickitats/pseuds/klickitats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> “At Adamant,” Merrill says, a dog with a new bone, “you opened a rift yourself. You could've just died when the fortress fell—smashed to pieces. Easy.” She smacks her hands together in unconscious emphasis. “But you didn’t." </em>
</p><p>Or, Merrill tries to convince Cadash to explore what's beyond the Eluvian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	movement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vail/gifts).



> Written to fill a great prompt for Hawke, the Inquisitor, and the ever-wonderful Merrill. Hope you like it!

No woman sneered as elegantly as Morrigan did, perhaps because none of the elegant ladies Cadash knew sneered at all. But disappointment suited her mouth just as well as a smile, and worse, she knew it.

“This is all rather foolish, Inquisitor,” she says. Her tone could wrinkle grapes on the vine. “You’ve let me down.”

Cadash dreamed, once, of being the type of dwarf to break women’s hearts. It would never happen, even as Inquisitor—the scars on her face were more ruddy than mysterious, her hair shorn nearly bald. _A mudbug scurrying out of Orzammar’s depths_ someone had hissed at her once, and spat. Cadash held her head up high, did not respond, and—well—remembered it for the rest of her life, better than the some of the scars on her flesh.

She wasn’t even from Orzammar. She was Carta contract muscle, well-built and never bent. Her tattoos started at her hairline and drew back over her brown scalp—lines her mother made with ink and a hot needle. Cadash never let her hair grow long and handsome because it would mean hiding her pride, and may an axe cleave her head from her neck before that ever happened.

Either way, no hearts broken. Cadash settles for the next best thing: disappointment.

She rolls her eyes and took another look at the massive Eluvian that stretched from floor to ceiling. She says, “I’m not going in there.”

“But you _must_ go,” Morrigan replies, her arms folded across bosom.

The truth was, if Cadash looks at the mirror too long, the hairs on the back of her neck would stand straight up, like pins in a pincushion. Not acceptable.

“I must do nothing,” she says mildly. “You go. Tell me what you find, and then point me to Corypheus, so I can kill him.”

Morrigan sputters—that _does_ delight a little part of her heart, but then Cadash turns and leaves the conversation before it can leave her.

~~~

Nobody wheedles her about it, not even Josephine. It surprises her at first, but then she forgets. Forgets while she and Cassandra lay total waste to the Emprise du Lion, or during countless laps around Skyhold with Gatsi and Josephine at her shoulders, planning a new mage tower, a better courtyard, larger stables. She forgets, taking long drags of her pipe while Bull and Krem see how many maidens they can lift on a bench at once at the Herald’s Rest, and then watches Krem _win_ because it’s an argument of proportion, not sheer numbers. It’s an incredible night.

The next morning, Hawke returns, that splash of red across her face. The ever-present paint never fails to amuse Cadash. What a production. If she really meant it, she’d get it tattooed.

But Hawke fights well enough, which is all that really matters. She figures it’s a routine visit, or she has something to report from Weisshaupt. She doesn’t put it together until Josephine asks if she can join them in the war room. Cadash agrees without thinking.

When she arrives—Cadash is always the last to arrive—there Hawke stands, painted and armored and ready—and not alone.

The elf at her side (taller than she has a right to be, slimmer than an ice pick) is engaged in such heady conversation with Morrigan that she doesn’t register the sound of the door opening, closing, or Cadash approaching the table. Josephine has to clear her throat three times to get them to pause, and even then, a little smile can’t help but grace her face.

 _Shit_ , Cadash thinks. Nobody was wheedling because they were too busy planning something. It makes her sweat, just a little.

“This is Merrill,” Hawke says. “A friend from Kirkwall. You’ll watch her, while I head up to Weisshaupt?”

A darkness crosses Merrill’s face so quickly Cadash nearly misses it altogether. “I’m sure your friend can watch herself,” is all she says.

“But we’re happy to have her,” Josephine adds, that smile growing ever larger. “What a pleasure.”

The war council meeting is short and to the point, and Merrill is nearly arm-in-arm with Morrigan by the end of it. (Morrigan would never permit anyone to take her arm. The void would freeze over the moment it happened. But they walk out of the room together, long after everyone has left.)

~~~

In the next week, Merrill is everywhere, like the impending signs of a headache. Always wavering in the corner of Cadash’s eye, pale and always _moving_. She flits to and fro like an overtalkative moth.

Occasionally, Cadash spots her sitting with Morrigan in the morning, her son by her side, as they eat breakfast in the dewy sunlight. It makes a strange picture. Morrigan doesn’t say much—but Cadash has never seen her listen, just _listen_ as she does now.

Cadash spends little time talking to the mages because there’s no point in it. They are welcome at Skyhold, allies in the hold. But Cadash has only seen the Fade twice, with no wish to repeat it. Yet Merrill constantly occupies her periphery. They do not approach one another.

One day, Cadash spends the afternoon in the courtyard working with new recruits. She knows she’s a terror with a two-handed axe and takes full advantage. She demonstrates with practice weapon, using Cullen as an example, how easy it is to leave a man legless. Cullen, good sport, grins. The recruits turn varying shades of green. If there is anything she will accomplish as the Inquisitor, it will be to make her army never underestimate a dwarf again.

The drawbridge breaks. They’ve been talking about replacing the chain for ages, never having the time or resources, but now it makes its pain known. It creaks loudly, and then the west chain gives up. It swings, half-wrenched out of its socket, a thousand pounds of wood _easy_. Cadash can’t for the life of her figure out how it happens—but then again, she’s never had a head for dwarven engineering.

Someone’s in the way—she can see it out of the corner of her eye. And all her body knows is _go._

She ends up flat on the ground, having swiftly tackled someone into the dust. Wood pokes into her back. She knows if she looks up it will be the corner of the bridge, gently prodding her in the spine. There’s a great deal of yelling in the courtyard beyond. She merely sighs.  

“Goodness,” says Merrill, her face muffled under Cadash’s armored forearm.

 “Sorry,” she mutters, and Merrill squirms. “I can’t move.”

She squirms even more, and then grumbles, “ _Elgar’nan_ —it, ah, tickles.”

Cadash realizes her mouth is nearly in Merrill’s ear and feels her scalp flush. “Sorry,” she says again, resulting in more wiggling.

Cadash tries to turn her head, but Merrill _tsks_ at her. “Small price to pay,” she says. “Don’t eat dirt on my account, Inquisitor.”

Her eyes are quite round, greener than she remembers. Cadash sees feet gathering around them to lift the wood. “Our heroes,” she says, and feels Merrill stiffen in an attempt not to shake.

“They pale in comparison,” she says with flourish. Cadash nearly rolls her eyes, but at these close quarters, she can see Merrill perfectly—and her sincerity marks every curve in her face, from her cheekbones to the long, black swoops of her eyelashes.

~~~

It really isn’t a surprise when, after the healers have looked her over and shaken their heads at her stupidity (there was a _person_ in the way, what else was she supposed to do?) Merrill comes and finds her after dinner.

It would usually be the time Cadash went down to the Herald’s Rest. Watching the Chargers drink had slowly become her favorite after-dinner pastime. But Merrill is suddenly there, perched on the stone stairs outside the hall. It's cold out; her cheeks are pink, like she's been waiting an awfully long time. She looks fetching in the autumn cold.

 _Stop thinking about it_ , Cadash thought, and says nothing. Merrill rises from the top step, brushing herself off. She notices again how tall, even though her posture hunched her shoulders.

She opened her mouth, but Cadash held up a hand. “I don’t need thanks,” she tells her quickly, hoping to just brush by.

But Merrill is unruffled. “Would you come with me?” she asks. She’s not wearing any gloves. The scars covering her fingers and palms trouble Cadash. She finds herself wanting to pore over them, like a linguist studying a text in a foreign language. _Stop thinking about it._

“Where?” she responds, somewhat stupidly. “I don’t make good company.”

“Nonsense,” says Merrill.

“Morrigan,” Cadash tries again, “would be better, I’m sure.”

Merrill’s chin reveals its stubbornness as she tilts her head, unperturbed. “I’ll have you know, Inquisitor,” she begins, “if we’re to play a waiting game, I stood on the edge of a dock for three hours in a winter storm to win a bet, in Kirkwall.” She gestures to the stone below them and shrugs. “I can stand here twice as long. You’re no storm.”

  _You’re no storm._ A taunt or a slap from anyone else—fighting words, the type of line to make her roll up her sleeves and crack her neck. No storm? She’d show them. She wasn’t called a skull-breaker for the fanciness of the title.

But Merrill says it gently. An expectation. A challenge, laid at her feet, not thrown in her face.

“What was the bet?” asks Cadash, lost.

Those wide, green eyes blink. “An attempt to get my friend a ship,” she says, her lips curving up at the memory. “Well—they’d made the bet, with the storm coming in, but then they put a powder in her drink so she couldn’t stand. I was the second. They said I’d crack in half like a river reed.” Her chin sticks out again, stubborn and smart. “They were wrong.”

Cadash tilts her head. A storm’s just a storm—

“It was a hurricane,” Merrill says hastily, as though reading her thoughts.  

It hadn’t occurred to her those existed in Kirkwall—wasn’t it too far north? But the way Merrill quickly clears her throat and glances towards the door only solidifies the reality.

“Won’t you come?” she asks once more. “Or will you make me wait?”

Cadash looks up at her, and finds herself unable to disappoint.

“Alright,” she says, and then Merrill leads her through the great hall.

She’s only been here a week, but folks raise their hands in greeting when she passes. Sera in particular yells something Cadash can’t identify across the hall. Merrill grins.

Then they turn down the corridor, through Josephine’s empty office, the hall to the war room, one more turn—

“ _No,_ ” says Cadash, against the feeling of stones being piled up to her neck. It slides in so quickly it takes her breath away.

“Just wait,” Merrill says, but the moment she steps towards the Eluvian it roars to life in a flash of color and light, an invisible curtain wrenched away from the glass. The burst fills the hall. Cadash’s stomach drops—the glare cages them in an invisible prism until it dims, a low glow behind the mirror’s face.

It makes no sound. Somehow that makes it worse.

Cadash is frozen in room’s threshold. It is worse, a thousand times worse than arguing here with Morrigan a week ago.

“You did something kind for me,” Merrill says, her voice gentled, like she’s quieting a nervous horse.

“This is not the thanks I require.” Cadash manages to cross her arms over her chest, set her jaw in a hard line. “I don’t need to go.”

Merrill _tut-tuts_. “You do,” she says. “You and I both know you do.”

“Why?” she snaps, petulant as a child.

“You’re a warrior. Don’t you see the value in seeing what your enemy wants?”

That’s not a line that came from her. Cadash can tell the moment it slips out of her mouth. Maybe from one of her advisors, but it doesn’t sound like any of them. Hawke, maybe.

It confirms the ruse. They both fall silent, and for the first time, Merrill looks angry. A clean cut look that she quickly hides. And not at her, Cadash realizes. At herself.

She rubs at her eyes with the heels of her pale hands. Both of them, caught in the sticky threads of what the Inquisition needs. It softens Cadash a little, although it does nothing to staunch the rapid thudding of her heart against her chest.

“Why?” asks Merrill, finally, hands back at her sides. “Why don’t you want to go?”

“Don’t like the Fade,” Cadash grunts. Simple enough answer. Morrigan’s explained it a dozen times: _what lies beyond the Eluvian is not the Fade, Inquisitor._ Doesn’t matter. It’s close enough.

“But you’ve been there,” she says. “More than once. You’ve walked around in it like it’s a paddling pond.”

“Happenstance.”

“But—” It’s interesting, to see what Merrill looks like when she truly doesn’t understand something. Others look duped, or angry, or dulled—Merrill rises to the challenge, focused as a knife-point and twice as sharp.

 Cadash just raises an eyebrow.

“You do dangerous things all the time, without thinking.” She gestures wildly. “This morning, for instance.”

“That was necessary.” Cadash shrugs. “You were there, and I just—went.”

Merrill’s eyes narrow deviously—and the Eluvian glows a little brighter. For a moment, Cadash wonders if she will take a step back and the mirror will wobble and fall, taking them both with it.

But no.

Merrill points to the mirror. “So just—go,” she repeats. “Into the fray, or whatever you’d like to call it. You could probably kill a demon with your bare hands if you needed to. You’ve nothing to fear.”

She has. But the point still stands. “No,” Cadash repeats.

“But you’ve _gone._ ” Merrill cannot move from the point. She runs a hand through her short black hair, her fingers snagging in the tangles. “You’ve gone, and lived, and seen it for yourself—a hundred times more dangerous than anything in this room.”

Even thinking about it runs a cold shiver up Cadash’s spine.

“At Adamant,” Merrill says, a dog with a new bone, “you opened a rift yourself. You could've just died when the fortress fell—smashed to pieces. Easy.” She smacks her hands together in unconscious emphasis. “Easy. But you didn’t, you _chose—_ ”

“It wasn’t a choice,” Cadash interrupts tersely.  

It halts everything. It’s Merrill’s turn to tilt her head.

“Either time.” Cadash’s mouth is dry. “I didn’t choose to go. The air opened, and I fell in.” She runs a hand over her face. “You can chalk it up to instinct, maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t want to be there. Not for a second.”

She curls her hands into fists. They won’t shake. She won’t be seen shaking—not a Carta skull-breaker, not a woman who once felt her teeth slice into the arteries of a man’s neck to survive an ambush.

“I can be anywhere,” she says. “And walk, unafraid. But—being forced.” She runs her tongue over her teeth. “It’s like a collar around my neck, when I’m there. We weren’t made for it. Dwarves don't even dream. It’s not mine, and I don’t want it.”  

She’s said too much, and knows for a fact the bits and pieces of it don’t make any sense. Merrill watches her, listening. Her eyes are full of an emotion without a name. Not pity. Nothing near it. Cadash can’t identify it for the life of her.

And she turns on her heel, long-limbed and—strangely confident, in her gawkish way. She walks towards the Eluvian. It glows warmly, the smile of an old friend, when she grazes her fingertips against the surface.

She takes a step in—only a step, her arm and leg disappearing within the portal. It shimmers blue over her, the light a thin curtain. She raises her hand to Cadash.

“Make it your place,” she says.

Cadash inhales through her teeth.

“Do you know what I like about the Fade? It bends.” Merrill smiles a little. “It’s made to breathe and move. To be touched. A living thing.” Her nose wrinkles. “Your Solas loves it for its history, to experience it like a picture book—but what poor use of it, honestly.”

“You’re a mage,” Cadash says helplessly.

Her nose wrinkles again. “And an elf. But nobody tells me where I can and can’t go.”

That makes her pause.

Cadash looks down. “You don’t have to repay me for today.”

“’You just went,’” Merrill quotes, in flat imitation of her accent. “I’m doing the same thing. Don’t you see?”

The shitty thing is Cadash does.

Merrill exhales. One last try left in her. “I’ll kill anything that tries to hurt you, if you let me,” she says, and Cadash chokes. “And if you won’t, I’ll do it anyway.” She shrugs and raises her hand again, wiggling her fingers. “If it’s mine,” she murmurs, “it’s yours. Won’t you take it?”

If she speaks of her hand or the Eluvian, Cadash will never actually be able to tell. All she knows is their fingers weave together, and in the span of the breath, she walks through the curtain. The Eluvian vibrates, the shaking notes of a wind chime, and goes quiet as they disappear. The empty hall glows a dim blue for a time, but never goes dark.


End file.
